PAKISTAN: MORE FLOODING, MORE DISPLACEMENT IN SOUTH

(Islamabad/New York/Geneva: 20 September
2010): Seven weeks from the onset of one of the worst natural disasters
in recent history, hundreds of thousands of people are still being displaced
by the floods in southern Pakistan's Sindh province.

"The flood waters are rising, and
every day we are seeing 20,000 to 30,000 people newly displaced. The waters
around Lake Manchar are overflowing in five directions, where flood victims
who fled other locations are now living", said Andy Pendleton, of
the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
(OCHA) in Sindh's southern city of Hyderabad.

"People are referring to this latest
flooding as a 'lake burst'. First we had the rain, then the waters from
the river, and now the lake", said Fawad Hussain, OCHA's coordinator
for Sindh based in the northern town of Sukkur. "We have not been
able to scale up as quickly in the far south due to lack of funding. Now
with the revised response plan launched, we hope to increase our resources",
Mr. Hussain added.

"The emergency situation is far
from over in the south. People are stranded and need to be airlifted out",
explained Aphaluck Bhapiasevi of the World Health Organization (WHO) in
the southern city of Hyderabad. WHO is sending medical, cholera and emergency
health kits to areas where the newly displaced have moved.

"Diarrhoeal diseases and malnutrition
are a huge concern. Children are at greatest risk", said Dr. Muireann
Brennen of WHO based in southern Sindh, "We have mobile medical teams
in the area, who are working hard to reach those in need".

The camps and makeshift settlements are
overcrowded and space and services are inadequate for accommodating the
large scale of displaced people. "Far more shelter materials are required
to meet the rapidly increasing needs in the south", said Emmanuel
Gignac, Emergency Coordinator for the United Nations High Commission for
Refugees (UNCHR) in Sindh.

"The monsoon rains may be over,
but the floods are not", said Andro Shilakadze, head of the local
office of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). "And once the
floods are over, we must stress that the most dangerous phase of this emergency
is yet to come. We must all work together in a concerted manner to avert
a health crisis, prevent further malnutrition, and combat the effects of
food shortages", he concluded.

Out of an estimated 20 million people
affected by floods spanning one-fifth of the country, more than 7.3 million
are in Sindh, where almost 1.1 million homes are estimated to have been
destroyed and close to 1.5 million people are living in relief camps. Through
the work of the United Nations and its partners in the province, 1.3 million
people have so far received food, while emergency shelter has reached 500,000
people. Clean drinking water is now available to nearly 500,000 people,
and more than one million have received medical attention.